True, but a large number of the issues of made in USA are related to
ridiculously high on-costs created by BS legislation for various reasons. The cost on compliance is very high for some, and manufacturers have to meet that cost and then pass it on.
here in Australia we have similar problems. Years back the ALP, owned and controlled by the union movement, passed laws that makes it almost impossible to sack anyone who's a full time employee; and even if you do have a case accepted under the law it costs a fortune to process. To give an example I know of:
An employee was caught on video tape stealing company goods. To sack them for theft they had to go through a system of warning them and then catching them another two times before they could kick them out the door. As if they're going to make catching them harder after being warned. On advice from an evil minded genius, they didn't go through the Human Relations processes at all. They took the matter to the police and let them police arrest and charge them with theft, and when the person went to prison for 6 months they were able to easily dismiss them for failure to turn up at work after being sent four notices to please explain. - - A very crazy way to get rid of a thief.
Anyway, one way small and medium businesses got around some of these crazy laws designed for huge corporations but applied to them was to employ a lot more part-time and casual staff. So after seeing this trend grow the ALP passed laws saying any part-time employed for more than a certain amount of time was deemed to be employed as permanent part-time. Thus part-timers started being placed on the same rosters as casuals and called casuals. When a casual was getting regular employment of enough hours or close to the period of being deemed permanent, they ceased getting rostered on for shifts for three months to reboot the count again. And the ALP wondered why the rate of employment of full-time staff was not rising, it simply wasn't economical for anyone but big business to employ them.
It costs more to employ a large list of casuals, but it's less than having one case of unfair dismissal. Those costs affect the business bottom line. As do costs to meet some of the other crazy laws out there.
Manufacture in the US and you have extra costs involved with meeting environmental laws, laws that don't exist in China. And that's just one item that would affect the operation. Union rules and interference is another.
